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Shvoong Home>Science>Issac Newton Summary

Issac Newton

Book Summary   by:Rich2809     Original Author: Alex
  • Summary rating: 4 stars (1 Ratings)
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1. Baby Newton Wasn’t Expected to Live
In 1642, the year that Galileo Galilei died, Isaac Newton was born prematurely on Christmas Day*. Named after his father, who died just three months before he was born, Isaac was a very small baby not expected to survive. His mother even said that Isaac was so small that he could have fit inside a quart mug. (Source: Isaac Newton’s Early Years )

*There is controversy about this date, some said that he was born on January 4, 1643. The discrepancy is due to the adoption of the new Gregorian calendar.

2. Newton Almost Became a Farmer
Newton was born into a farming family. When he was 17, his mother insisted that he returned from school to run the family farm! Thankfully, Newton was a bad farmer and not long afterwards, his uncle successfully persuaded his mother to let him attend Trinity College in Cambridge instead. (Source: Isaac Newton’s Early Years )

3. Newton and His Apple: The True Story
The story (popularized by Voltaire, no less!) said that Newton was inspired when he saw a falling apple while walking around his family’s garden at Woolsthorpe Manor, to formulate his theory of universal gravitation (some version even claimed the apple fell on his head!).

Newton himself actually said that he was staring out the window in his house when he saw an apple fall from a tree.


Purported offspring of the Newton’s Apple Tree in Woolsthorpe Manor (Image Source: Mathematical Association of America)

Whatever happened to the tree? The King’s School in Grantham, Linconshire, England, where Newton went to school, claimed to have purchased the tree and moved it to its garden. Naturally, this is a bone of contention with the Woolsthorpe Manor people who are currently in charge of the upkeep of Newton’s home (now a historic site). (Source: Newton’s Apple )

4. Newton was Secretive - He Rarely Published
There’s no doubt that Newton was brilliant, but what is not commonly known was that the majority of Newton’s discoveries were made between his twenty-first and twenty-seventh years. Yet, he didn’t disclose these findings to the world until years later.

Take for example Newton’s work on optics: his ground-breaking experiments on the nature of light (that ordinary white light is actually composed of a spectrum of colors) were done by 1669, when Newton was just 27 years old.Yet, he first presented his findings to the British Royal Society three years later, when he was elected as a fellow. (Source: Hart, Michael. (1998) The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History)

Newton’s secretiveness had led to many quarrels over credit. For example, when mathematician Gottfried Leibniz published his work on calculus, Newton countered that he had invented methods for that branch of math many years previously but didn’t publish, thus sparking one of the largest controversy in mathematics: who truly invented calculus ?

5. Newton was Deeply Religious …
Newton’s work, particularly the laws of motion and universal gravitation , had been used by some people to argue against the existence of God. Newton himself, however, said:

"Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done."

"This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being. … This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont to be called ‘Lord God’ , or ‘Universal Ruler’. … The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect."

"Opposition to godliness is atheism in profession and idolatry in practice. Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors." (Source: Isaac Newton’s Religious Views )
Published: February 03, 2008   
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